Jason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peacehttp://www.cato.org/
enamast@cato.org (Andrew Mast)webmaster@cato.org (Cato Webmaster)Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:23:07 -0400Tue, 30 Jun 2015 10:29:24 -0400Marriage Policy Is a Mess. Here’s How to Make Sense of It.http://www.cato.org/blog/marriage-policy-mess-heres-how-make-sense-it
<p><a href="http://time.com/3939374/rand-paul-gay-marriage-supreme-court/">Give Rand Paul points for trying</a>: His opinion piece about marriage policy in the wake of <em>Obergefell</em> did better than many other Republicans have done. He did <em>not </em>call for resurrecting the dead – and politically toxic – Federal Marriage Amendment. He would appear to be actually considering the issues at stake, which is a good start.</p>
<p>But contrary to the promise of the headline (which he probably didn’t write anyway), the measures that Senator Paul recommends would not get government “out of the marriage business altogether.” Judging by what he actually wrote, local government would still control entry and exit from civil marriage, and civil marriage itself would apparently still continue to exist. Many federal consequences, like <a href="http://www.ssa.gov/planners/survivors/onyourown2.html">Social Security survivorship</a> and the <a href="http://www.uscis.gov/family/family-us-citizens/spouse/bringing-spouses-live-united-states-permanent-residents">ability to sponsor an immigrant spouse</a>, would presumably continue to flow from marital status - and they’d still be unavailable in any other way.</p>
<p>This isn’t such a terrible thing, necessarily. Marriage policy is really, really complicated. As long as we have a government, and as long as it’s making important decisions about our families and property, at least some parts of civil marriage may actually be worth saving. <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/marriage-against-state-toward-new-view-civil-marriage">Marriage can serve as a protection against the state</a>, one that (among lots of other things) keeps families together and makes the Social Security system run marginally more justly: If anyone deserves to recoup some of what the government takes by way of the payroll tax, it’s the widow of the worker who “contributed.” And if anyone is competent to sponsor a new citizen, it must be that new citizen’s spouse.</p>
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Meanwhile, leaving the entry conditions of marriage to the states would have been neither crazy nor unprecedented. It’s what has very often happened throughout our country’s history, and if the Supreme Court had gone that route, <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/change-doesnt-usually-come-this-fast/" target="_blank">we’d likely have had ubiquitous gay marriage soon enough anyway</a>. Historically speaking, states have commonly set very diverse requirements to enter into a marriage. <a href="http://family.findlaw.com/marriage/marriage-license-requirements.html">These state-level requirements have included blood tests, waiting periods, and varying limits on consanguinity and age</a>, to name just the big ones. (Also, notoriously, some states formerly set racial requirements, which I obviously deplore.)</p>
<p>Although the Supreme Court has repeatedly called marriage a fundamental right – including in <em>Obergefell</em> – the Court has also historically left the entry conditions of civil marriage to the states. It has intervened only seldom in this area. Interventions have included permitting interracial marriage, forbidding polygamy, allowing convicts to marry, and now permitting same-sex marriage, a decision I certainly approve of. If the state is to extend civil marriage, it ought to do so without respect to gender.</p>
<p>Not that I approve of <em>everything </em>that the civil aspect of marriage does. Far from it.</p>
<p>Contrary to what Senator Paul seems to claim, I am not aware that government has ever taxed marriage per se. The reality is a lot more complicated than that. There’s a marriage penalty to the income tax, but there’s also a marriage bonus. Which one you get depends on your income, your spouse’s income, and the distribution between them, <a href="http://taxfoundation.org/article/effects-marriage-tax-burden-vary-greatly-income-level-equality">as this baffling chart from the Tax Foundation shows</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/wp-content/uploads/ff352_chart_small.png" width="620" height="620" ></p>
<p>As if the perverse incentives of the above chart were not enough, there’s a deeper problem: The weird income tax effects of marriage can’t be eliminated until we either scrap the graduated income tax or cease to levy it on anything other than an individual basis. (Neither of those would be a bad idea, necessarily, though the latter would leave households of equal incomes taxed unequally if their income <em>distributions </em>were unequal. I’m not sure why we’d want to do that, but when you make the tax rates progressive, that’s what you’re stuck with. It’s that or a marriage penalty and/or bonus. Mathematically, it just can’t be any other way.) Ultimately the tax effects of marriage are one of those areas where marriage policy would better off if we hit the reset button - on the tax system.</p>
<p>A good deal of the confusion about the meaning of marriage could also be remedied by admitting that there are in fact <em>two kinds of marriage</em> in the United States, private and civil. They usually happen at the same time, but they are quite distinct, legally. Private marriages can and should be recognized (or not) by individuals, churches, and families, freely and on a case-by-case basis. This is a matter of religious and associational liberty, and as such it should remain fully protected by the First Amendment. “Marriage” in this sense is not a government matter at all.</p>
<p>This private sort of marriage is a fundamental and negative right; it doesn’t need the government’s help to come into being. On this Rand Paul is absolutely correct, and I share his concern that churches and religiously observant businesses will be compelled to celebrate marriages that they find unconscionable. This they should not be forced to accept. (It hardly matters that these are scruples that have only lately appeared: Same-sex marriage <em>itself</em> has only lately appeared.)</p>
<p>The supporters of same-sex civil marriage, myself included, need to be magnanimous in victory, and we should now strive to protect those who are not inclined to celebrate our civil marriages in their private associations. We gays and lesbians in particular have felt the sting that can come from being in a politically powerless minority, and we ought not to inflict it on others.</p>
<p>So much for the private aspects of marriage, which are matters of natural (and negative) right. Civil marriage, meanwhile, is a <em>civil right</em>, like the right to vote, or the right to a trial by jury. Civil rights wouldn’t exist in the state of nature, but in a governed state they can, and many of them clearly should. Our current implementation of civil marriage is tied up with welfare and tax policy in ways that libertarians correctly find troubling, as discussed above. But civil marriage <em>also</em> helps to clean up a lot of otherwise serious disputes in property and child custody law, and in matters of medical care and legal representation. Having marriage settles many questions and closes off many avenues by which the government might otherwise make itself troublesome.</p>
<p>All of this is to say that civil marriage is a <em>bundle</em>, and not all of it in my opinion is bad. Some of it can make our family lives more orderly and more predictable, more stable and actually <em>less governed</em> by judges and lawyers (and nosy relatives) – and more governed by ourselves, in exactly the ways that we see fit.</p>
<p>That’s a thing that libertarians perhaps should want after all: If the government ever got<em> out </em>of the marriage business, we might suddenly find it much more <em>in </em>all of our family lives.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/marriage-policy-mess-heres-how-make-sense-itTue, 30 Jun 2015 10:29 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason Kuznicki'Little House on the Prairie's' Contribution to Freedomhttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/little-house-prairies-contribution-freedom
<p>“Not ‘Harry Potter’!” says Alice, age five. “I want ‘Little House’!”</p>
<p>It’s the age of negotiated bedtime reading. My husband and I oblige, and tonight we read from “Little House in the Big Woods,” the first installment of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s fictionalized autobiography. We take turns reading: Alice reads, then I do, then Scott does. Then Alice reads again. It’s never enough.</p>
<p>What draws her in? A lot of things. The characters are mostly female, young, and strong. Laura herself begins “Little House” at four, an age that wins our daughter’s ready empathy. Not unlike the first volume of “Harry Potter,” “Little House in the Big Woods” introduces an unknown world; done properly, that’s always exciting. As generations already know, the story is clean and earnest, without affectation or smarm. And it’s told in words that Alice can read all on her own—a great confidence builder.</p>
<p>It’s sometimes hard to fathom, though, just how different Laura’s life was from our own: churning butter, salting meat, boiling down maple syrup… <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-01-29/joni-ernst-s-bread-bags-and-economic-progress" target="_blank">Megan McArdle discussed all this in a recent piece for Bloomberg</a>. The “Little House” books open up a lost world for today’s kids—and for today’s adults:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[A]s an adult… what really strikes you is how incredibly poor these people were. The Ingalls family were in many ways bourgeoisie: educated by the standards of the day, active in community leadership, landowners. And they had <em>nothing.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>We’re not just talking a different skill set, then. The skills came of necessity, and of hardships almost wholly unknown today: “Little House” contains the actual sentence, “They had never seen a machine before”—because, well, they hadn’t.</p>
<p><strong>‘Little House’s’ Place in American History</strong></p>
<p>I am no one’s idea of a nationalist, but the least harmful nationalism I know is the simple idea that nationhood comes from a group of people experiencing history together, and understanding it as a shared experience. “Little House” is one of those shared histories, and it’s one of the finest pieces of Americana that I know.</p>
<p>It’s also a story with a special connection for American libertarians: Wilder had only one surviving daughter, whose name was Rose Wilder Lane. Although less remembered today, Rose was a journalist and a successful author in her own right. Unlike her frontier mother, Rose lived an urbane and world-traveling lifestyle; she even separated from her husband, in an era when such things simply were not done. Scholars still argue over just how much of the “Little House” books were Laura’s doing, and how much they were helped along—or produced—by Rose’s edits.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote right">
<p class="pq-quote"><span class="open-quote">“</span><span class="pq-body">The ‘Little House’ books open a lost world for today’s kids—and adults.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Clearly, we can’t settle that question here. The works Rose did author, including “The Discovery of Freedom” and “Give Me Liberty,” helped re-launch the classical liberal movement or, as it came to be known, libertarianism, in an era—the 1940s—when its opposite was all the rage. Whether on the fascist right or the communist left, modern politics seemed to embrace central control, to say nothing of the conformity and brutality accompanying it.</p>
<p><strong>A Tradition of Creative Destruction</strong></p>
<p>Such things were not for Rose: She declared that just seeing the Soviet Union had rid her of her youthful communism. From that point on she would champion individualism, capitalism, and—in her words—the “natural diversity of human beings.” Diversity, she held, had been allowed to flourish in America as nowhere else and never before. <em>This</em> was the secret of American strength: that each person was free to be more different than he or she might have been elsewhere, to pursue new talents, new lifestyles, and bold creative visions.</p>
<p>“It is our tradition,” she wrote, “our heritage… to destroy the old, to create the new.” Authoritarianism was <em>not</em> new, she insisted. It was ancient, and it was not even particularly interesting. We Americans had leaped from abject frontier poverty to the wealthiest nation in the world only by discovering, and embracing, freedom.</p>
<p>As a small token of the appreciation we libertarians hold for such a bold and original thinker, the Cato Institute has named its front hall for Rose Wilder Lane. Now, some will tell you that she <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-13/-little-house-is-not-a-big-libertarian-conspiracy" target="_blank">peppered the </a>“<a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-13/-little-house-is-not-a-big-libertarian-conspiracy">Little House” </a><a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-13/-little-house-is-not-a-big-libertarian-conspiracy" target="_blank">books with libertarian propaganda</a>, praising the ruggedly individualistic frontiersmen. But I don’t think that’s quite right (<a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-13/-little-house-is-not-a-big-libertarian-conspiracy" target="_blank">and neither does Megan</a>). “I have no illusions about the pioneers,” Rose wrote. She deemed the pioneers Europe’s trouble-makers, “not the stuff one would have chosen to make a nation or an admirable national character.” What did make an admirable national character was liberty itself.</p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/little-house-prairies-contribution-freedomWed, 10 Jun 2015 14:57 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiHow to Recognize a Free-Speech Herohttp://www.cato.org/blog/how-recognize-free-speech-hero
<p>Free speech has been in the news a lot recently. And lately it seems that we’ve had an unusually vigorous crop of <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/attack-utility-monsters-new-threats-free-speech" target="_blank">utility monsters</a> - the sort of professional complainers whose feelings are all too easily bruised, and who therefore demand that the rights of others be curtailed. </p>
<p>In a climate like this, it’s important to distinguish the true heroes of free speech from the false ones. The latter are all too common. The key question to ask of public figures is simple: <em>If you had all the power,</em> <em>how would you treat your opponents?</em></p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/04/geert-wilders-the-champion-of-free-speech-in-texas-wants-to-ban-the-koran-in-holland/" target="_blank">Meet Dutch politician Geert Wilders</a>. He was a guest of honor at the recent <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/05/03/gunmen-shot-dead-in-texas-after-opening-fire-outside-prophet-muhammad-cartoon-show/" target="_blank">Garland, Texas exhibition of cartoons of Mohammed</a>, where two would-be terrorists armed with assault weapons were gunned down by a single heroic security guard armed only with a pistol. (Nice shooting, by the way.)</p>
<p>Wilders is now being hailed as a free-speech hero, at least in some circles. Unfortunately, he’s nothing of the kind. Besides criticizing Islam, Wilders has also repeatedly called for banning the Koran. The former is compatible with the principle of free speech. The latter is not.</p>
<p>A key move here is to distinguish the <em>exercise </em>of free speech from the <em>principled defense </em>of free speech. The two are not the same, as my colleague Adam Bates has ably pointed out.</p>
<p><em>Exercises</em> of free speech can be completely one-sided. As an example, here’s me exercising my free speech: I happen to think Islam is a <em>false</em> religion. I have no belief whatsoever that Mohammed’s prophecies are true. They’re not even all that interesting. <span style="line-height: 1.3em;">I mean, if you think the Bible is dull…well…have I got a book for you. I speak only for myself here, but I <em>disagree</em> <em>with</em> Islam. (And probably with your religion, too, because I’m a skeptic about all of them.) My saying so is an <em>exercise </em>of free speech. </span></p>
<p><em>Defenses </em>of free speech are different. Properly speaking, they must not be one-sided.<span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> A principled defense of free speech means giving your opponents in any particular issue the exact same rights that you would claim for yourself: If you would offend them with words, then they must be allowed to offend you with words, too. Say what you like about them, and they must be allowed to say what they like about you. </span></p>
<p>No, we’re not all going to agree. And that’s actually the point: Given that agreement on so many issues is simply impossible in our modern, interconnected world, how shall we proceed? With violence and repression? Or with toleration, even for views that we find reprehensible? </p>
<p>If you had all the power, how would you treat your opponents?</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/how-recognize-free-speech-heroWed, 06 May 2015 10:25 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiBaltimore and the Rights of the Poorhttp://www.cato.org/blog/baltimore-rights-poor
<p>​Well… there goes our trip to Baltimore. ​<a href="http://www.kineticbaltimore.com/" target="_blank">We’d been hoping to see the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, but I see it’s been postponed <em>sine die</em></a>.</p>
<p>If you’re inclined, now is your chance to laugh. Get it out early.</p>
<p>Here’s a problem in describing how cities work: Any example I might pick to symbolize the decay of Baltimore can <em>always</em> be ridiculed: <em>Weep, weep my friends for that lousy corporate CVS, the one that nobody really liked anyway!</em></p>
<p>See how <em>easy</em> that was?</p>
<p>The one direct effect I have experienced from the recent riots is that my daughter and I will possibly not be seeing a giant pink taffeta poodle pedaled down the streets of Baltimore by a bunch of probably inebriated art students. I’m unlikely to suffer any of the riots’ more troubling effects, like having to walk an extra half mile to get my asthma medication. Or like getting my car torched.</p>
<p>(And yes: Leading with the pink taffeta poodle <em>might just be the definition of white privilege</em>, but at least I’m, you know, aware of it.)</p>
<p>Cities are hard to explain. They’re made up of millions of tiny little things, and of the networks of trust and expectation that exist among them. Any one of those things—a CVS, a giant pink taffeta poodle, a population of inebriated art students—does <em>not</em> make a city. Almost any one of them can be laughed at, or just dismissed as trivial, in isolation. But good, functional cities are <em>networks</em>. They’re not isolated nodes. A city isn’t the big taffeta poodle, but it <em>might be </em>the expectation that there will be something fun, and free, to do in the streets on some warm spring afternoon. For which we can thank the art students.</p>
<!--break--><p>And other expectations too: <em>After</em> we see the giant pink taffeta poodle, and when my daughter gets stung by a bee, <em>there’s the CVS</em>, and after that, when we decide we want dinner, we have several choices at hand. And if we want a room for the night, there it is. And if we want to relocate to Baltimore, we might just be able to find decent housing and jobs.</p>
<p>I think we can all agree that that’s what a city should look like. But how does it come into being?</p>
<p>I suspect that some significant trust has to be there first. Without it, few will venture to try new things. Restaurants won’t open. Parades won’t be held. Families won’t move in. Few will try adding new threads to the network. And when the old threads wear out, they will not be replaced.</p>
<p>For a very long time the networks of trust and expectation in the city of Baltimore have been fraying. But it’s not because of the rioting, which is only a symptom, if an advanced one, of an underlying condition. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/what-policing-justice-in-baltimore-requires/391598/" target="_blank">The well-documented culture of police brutality in Baltimore</a> has meant that one of the bigger threads in the network—the ability to turn to police when you or your property is threatened—cannot be depended on. And when that thread goes, so go many others.</p>
<p>It’s long been known in Baltimore that the police can’t be counted on to perform their core functions, particularly in the poorer neighborhoods: In such places the police either can’t or won’t reliably protect persons and property from attack. Not without levels of collateral damage that any reasonable person would deplore. And when you don’t have security, you can forget all about community.</p>
<p>That’s part of why, paradoxically, the poor need property rights even more than the rich: What the poor possess is definitionally small. As a result, it’s all too easy to take everything that they have. Including their sense of dignity. Including their ability to trust. And, finally, including their sense of community, which has to start (and I do feel a bit pedantic saying it) with the understanding that community leaders and enforcers aren’t just out to squeeze them for cash. That the leaders and enforcers don’t see them merely as yet another home to be searched, another gun to seize, another dog to shoot, and another marijuana conviction waiting to happen.</p>
<p>The poor need security not just in their own property, but also in that of others. And these others aren’t necessarily poor. It’s a good thing whenever the owner of a grocery store franchise feels confident enough to get started in a neighborhood that maybe wasn’t so well-off, and that maybe lacked good choices beforehand. But that won’t happen without a measure of trust, and when the community has good reason not to trust, well, outsiders probably won’t trust either.</p>
<p>Contrast all this to the property rights of the rich. Paradoxically, the rich often barely need formal protections of their rights at all. Their property just isn’t threatened all that much, whether by the police or by anyone else. And when the property rights of the rich do get threatened, the rich can fight back. Definitionally, they have many more resources at hand, including non-financial ones: The rich have political influence, private security choices, and just… <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/30/remembering-marylands-failed-effort-to-use-eminent-domain-against-the-baltimore-colts/" target="_blank">moving</a>. The would-be owner of a grocery store franchise isn’t compelled to open in any particular neighborhood, or even to go into business at all. His money can always sit safely in a bank.</p>
<p>The rich also aren’t living so precariously: Even if all else fails, and if a rich person’s car does get torched, <em>he can just buy another car</em>. Yes, that’s bad, but it’s not going to ruin him. The same can’t necessarily be said of a poor person, for whom a car might be her single most valuable possession.</p>
<p>So while I’m complaining about the loss of a silly (but fun) kinetic sculpture race, let’s all remember just who depends the most on the networks of trust and expectation that can either live, or die, in our cities. Let’s also remember that those networks depend on protecting the all too fragile property rights of the poor.</p>
<p>Update: We are informed that the drivers of all kinetic sculptures are to be sober at the time.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/baltimore-rights-poorThu, 30 Apr 2015 13:10 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiA Far-Out Cato Unboundhttp://www.cato.org/blog/far-out-cato-unbound
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/december-2014/politics-social-theory-seti" target="_blank">This month at <em>Cato Unbound</em>, we’re talking about the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, or SETI</a>.</p>
<p>Why’s that, you ask?</p>
<p>Several reasons, really. First, although it’s not exactly a hot public policy topic, it will certainly become one if we ever actually find anything. But that’s hardly where the importance of the topic ends.</p>
<p>Much more interesting to me at least is that SETI can serve as a springboard for discussing all kinds of important concepts in public policy. Our contributors this month - David Brin, Robin Hanson, Jerome H. Barkow, and Douglas Vakoch - have talked about <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/01/david-brin/seti-meti-paradox-extraterrestrial-life-there-libertarian-perspective" target="_blank">the open society</a>, <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/03/robin-hanson/should-earth-shut-hell" target="_blank">cost-benefit analysis</a>, <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/05/jerome-h-barkow/extraterrestrial-evolutionary-psychology" target="_blank">evolutionary psychology</a>, the <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/10/david-brin/trust-me-i-know-exactly-whats-out-there" target="_blank">hubris of experts</a>, the <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/10/jerome-h-barkow/nothing-much-say" target="_blank">narcissim of small differences</a>, and even <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/12/10/robin-hanson/pascals-alien-wager" target="_blank">Pascal’s Wager (and what’s wrong with it)</a>. </p>
<p>So… lots of interesting stuff, particularly for libertarians who are interested in public policy.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/far-out-cato-unboundThu, 11 Dec 2014 09:53 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiWhat Public Choice Theory Says about Ebolahttp://www.cato.org/blog/what-public-choice-theory-says-about-ebola
<p>What does public choice theory say about responding to Ebola?</p>
<p>That is: What are the costs and benefits of various policies – not to the public – but to self-interested politicians? Public choice theory holds that politicians’ interests don’t always coincide with the public’s, and sometimes they diverge quite sharply. When interests diverge, politicians will often side with their own self-interest, even at the expense of the public.</p>
<p>So what do they want? Politicians want public esteem. They want above all to be seen as <em>heroes</em>. If that means sacrificing civil liberties - to little or no public benefit - then they will do so.</p>
<p>This remains true even if the “heroic” measures at hand amount to Ebola security theater. It would appear that’s what we’re getting - a set of state-level quarantines that are actually <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/lawmakers-call-ebola-quarantines-experts-urge-calm" target="_blank">contrary to what doctors and epidemiologists recommend</a>. (No, the public probably won’t care what the experts say. I mean, look – the public still buys antibacterial soaps, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibacterial_soap" target="_blank">public health experts don’t recommend those either</a>.)</p>
<p>In general, then, we can expect politicians to be eager to quarantine. This eagerness will be completely independent of the specific facts of any particular disease. Recall that lots of politicians once wanted to be able to set up an HIV quarantine, too, even long after it was well known that HIV can’t be transmitted by hugging, kissing, sharing utensils, sharing toilet seats, non-euphemistic cuddling, or what have you. (Wasn’t that a loooong time ago? No: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/02/kansas-quarantine-bill-has-hiv-aids-advocates-up-in-arms.html" target="_blank">It was just last year</a>. And they got what they wanted.)</p>
<p>In short, whether or not a quarantine is right in any particular case – and it might be right in some cases, though I wouldn’t know – public choice theory says that politicians will err on the side of quarantine.</p>
<p>If that seems cynical, consider the flip side: Politicians also don’t want to look like the ones who let Ebola into the country. Note that one might look like the person who brought Ebola into the country <em>even when one’s policies are responsible for exactly zero additional Ebola risk</em>. Life is unfair sometimes. Even to politicians.</p>
<p>To look like a screwup, all you have to do… is nothing. The public will be left to stew in its fears, and they hate it when that happens. So they will punish you, and your party, at the next possible opportunity. (When is that again?)</p>
<p>The costs of doing nothing here are especially high if your constituency happens to be made up of conservatives – <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/08/obamacare-and-the-rights-cleanliness-fetish.html" target="_blank">in whom Jonathan Chait has pointed out a strong emotional preference for purity and cleanliness</a>. We should thus expect to find fear of contamination at or near the top of the to-do list for conservatives, who will try, first, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/27/republicans-want-you-scared-of-ebola.html" target="_blank">to intensify these fears</a>, and second, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/lawmakers-call-ebola-quarantines-experts-urge-calm" target="_blank">to promote their own policies as the only ones capable of relieving them</a>.</p>
<!--break--><p>
Much as I may hate to say it, this model explains very well the actions of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who enacted an Ebola quarantine against consensus medical opinion. Nurse Kaci Hickox, herself quarantined, has since delivered <a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/ebola/headlines/20141025-uta-grad-isolated-at-new-jersey-hospital-as-part-of-ebola-quarantine.ece" target="_blank">a harrowing account of her chaotic re-entry experience</a>. Hardly the hero’s welcome that she deserved.</p>
<p>Now, we might well expect Hickox to protest. After all, she was the one actually spending the days in isolation. We should consider then, the opinions of disinterested experts, who understand the risks but who did not have their personal liberty at stake. <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1413139" target="_blank">This letter in the<em> New England Journal of Medicine</em> seems especially on point</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>[Quarantine for health workers] is not scientifically based, is unfair and unwise, and will impede essential efforts to stop these awful outbreaks of Ebola disease at their source, which is the only satisfactory goal. The governors’ action is like driving a carpet tack with a sledgehammer: it gets the job done but overall is more destructive than beneficial.</p></blockquote>
<p>When Christie appeared to abandon his quarantine policy – and let’s be honest about it, that’s basically what he did – <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/28/politics/christie-ebola-interview/index.html" target="_blank">he explained himself as follows</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>We’re trying to be careful here,” Christie said on NBC’s “Today,” referring to his state’s policy. “This is common sense, and … the American public believes it is common sense. And we’re not moving an inch. Our policy hasn’t changed, and our policy will not change.</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s common sense! And yet common sense isn’t necessarily what’s called for here. Common sense may win elections, but viruses are a lot more like chemistry than they are like common sense. Common sense doesn’t vary, but viruses’ properties do vary, often tremendously. The appropriate measures for containing each of them will likewise, and these measures will not always include quarantine. In a case like this, politicians, who must run on common sense, and on common fears, are unfortunately the last people we should be listening to. We know their biases too well.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/what-public-choice-theory-says-about-ebolaTue, 28 Oct 2014 11:01 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiAftermath: The Unintended Consequences of Public Policieshttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/aftermath-unintended-consequences-public-policies
<p><div class="event-book"><a href="http://store.cato.org/books/aftermath-unintended-consequences-public-policy"><img src="http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/images/aftermath-book-cover.jpg" border=0 ></a></div>When government imposes new taxes, rules, or regulations, it creates outcomes that often differ from the original intent. In some cases, these outcomes are so severe that they render the policy a failure. The law of unintended consequences has taken on an increasing importance during the era of ever-expanding government, and this book explores four important examples: cigarette taxes, alcohol prohibition, the minimum wage, and federal income tax. Hall examines how the policies came into being, what underlying political considerations influenced the process, the unintended outcomes of the policies, and why many of these policies are still in place. Because many of these unintended consequences are seriously adverse, the author argues that the moral of these four key examples is that whenever a new government policy is being considered, much more detailed review must be given to the range of potential unintended consequences—a practice that is rarely or accurately undertaken.</p>http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/aftermath-unintended-consequences-public-policiesThu, 18 Sep 2014 12:00 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)John Samples, Jason KuznickiSimCity Progressiveshttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/simcity-progressives
<p>In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture scrapped the Food Pyramid that it had promoted for nearly two decades. Split into six sections, the Food Pyramid rested on a hefty load of complex carbohydrates: 6–11 servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta.</p>
<p>Oof.</p>
<p>Whatever else one may say of it, the Food Pyramid was clear, specific, and so simple that even a child could understand it. But there was just one problem: Americans were getting fatter. Increasingly, nutritionists blamed the carbs.</p>
<p>So out went the Food Pyramid, and in came MyPlate, a guide whose visual recommendations are so vague that anyone not deeply connected to the ongoing nutritional debate might have a hard time saying why it even exists or what it is trying to accomplish. Still, at least it doesn’t recommend the massive daily doses of pasta.</p>
<p>Americans, being the good, obedient souls that they are, promptly started losing weight.</p>
<p><strong>GOVERNMENT-CENTRIC THINKING</strong><br />
At least that’s the story told here in Washington, where all the right-thinking folks hold that every good outcome has a federal explanation. Here, it was the quite possibly improved federal nutrition guidelines, along with first lady Michelle Obama’s advocacy against childhood obesity.</p>
<p>If the citizens are happy, then surely a bureaucrat is behind it, and it’s only a question of figuring out which one to thank. If they are sad, well, in this town, that’s just another word for opportunity.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote right">
<p class="pq-quote"><span class="open-quote">“</span><span class="pq-body">Whatever our ideology, we all grew up playing governmentality games.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>A more sensible take on obesity, of course, would be to note that no trend continues forever, not even American fatness. Reversion to the mean, while it hasn’t quite happened yet, ought never to surprise. Every trend continues until it can’t anymore. None go on forever.</p>
<p>MyPlate serves as a good example of the sort of thinking I like to call “SimCity” progressivism. On this view, the government’s purpose is not necessarily to provide any particular goods or services, and not even (or only) the ones found in the Constitution. </p>
<p>No, the government’s purpose is to carefully curate the lives of the citizens — adjusting here, pruning there, maybe not necessarily forbidding, but managing, down to the last exquisite detail. Rather like one might do in a government simulator, only in real life.</p>
<p><strong>NO ROOM FOR NON-MODEL CITIZENS</strong><br />
The nanny state is nothing new, of course, but new data and new procedural tools are giving rise to new ways of thinking about government and its role in all of our lives. Gone are the big-isms of the 20th century, but in their place is the overwhelming propensity to micromanage with data.</p>
<p>The goal of government would appear to be, in the words of criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield, “a world of tasteless, sanitary perfection.” Government exists to give us a life that is not merely evil-free or pain-free, but also risk-free and surprise-free as well. A managed, predictable life, rather like the life to be had inside a well-played game of “SimCity.”</p>
<p>To a generation just a bit older than me, this punctiliousness may look neurotic and maybe even a little threatening. But people my age and younger might not even find it terribly surprising.</p>
<p>We are a generation raised on video games. And in this new vast wasteland, not all of it terrible mind you, the genre of government simulators looms large. Whatever our ideology, we all grew up playing governmentality games:</p>
<p>“SimCity,” or “Civilization,” or one of the many others like them. We learned from, and we were often persuaded by, these games.</p>
<p>This is not to say that “SimCity” is the real or the only reason for the mess we’re in. Certainly not. It’s an artifact, albeit one of many, all of them speaking with nearly the same voice. Our governmentality games offer a vision of what many seemingly take for a better government than our own.</p>
<p>Their biggest underlying claim is that human society is algorithmic: It can be modeled effectively with a set of mathematically defined procedures. True, computer games can hardly do otherwise, but to say that they simulate life is also in a sense to claim that life itself is algorithmic: Computers run models of citizens, and these models behave like… well, like model citizens.</p>
<p>Now, mainstream economics has made great strides in understanding how societies work by assuming that humans really are algorithmic, and by trying to model their behavior accordingly. Sometimes the economists are right. But they are also very often wrong, and when they are, economists inevitably learn something interesting. </p>
<p><strong>PROCEDURAL PERSUASION</strong><br />
By contrast, governmentality games’ algorithms implicitly make much, much stronger claims about how the real world works, and about the very best ways to run it. They stake these claims in large part by walking their players through procedures.</p>
<p>Media studies professor Ian Bogost argues that procedural rhetoric is a key element of a well-realized video game. What’s that mean? Bogost writes:</p>
<p>“[P]rocedural rhetoric is the practice of using processes persuasively, just as verbal rhetoric is the practice of using oratory persuasively and visual rhetoric is the practice of using images persuasively. Procedural rhetoric is a general name for the practice of authoring arguments through processes… [I]ts arguments are made not through the construction of words or images, but through the authorship of rules of behavior, the construction of dynamic models. In computation, those rules are authored in code, though the practice of programming.”</p>
<p>Here’s the problem, one that seems to worry critics like Bogost, and that frankly worries me a bit as well: We’re all more or less aware of the tricks of verbal rhetoric. We also usually know when an image or a narrative is trying to sell us something. We’re all members of a capitalist, advertising-heavy society, and while I adore capitalism, I find that knowing how not to be persuaded is surely a survival skill in any capitalist economy (it may even be a virtue: Consumers get better at detecting baloney over time).</p>
<p>We argue in words almost by nature. We do it in pictures, too: We love parodies of advertising posters, and no sketch comedy show post-“Saturday Night Live” would be complete without a few deadpanned mock-earnest commercials for horrid new products.</p>
<p>But we’re a lot worse at picking apart procedural rhetorics, the very kinds found in video games. Here, the rhetoric is a thing we perform: We’re the stars of the production, the pilot in the cockpit, the all-seeing monarch who sends his troops into battle. We’re the city planners.</p>
<p>Video games’ persuasive power has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the games are realistic. Right or wrong, players can still have fun, and be persuaded by, a simulation. How many of us can say for certain whether flight simulator games really simulate flight?</p>
<p>The claim is at least questionable, and sometimes, the answer is clearly “no.” But it’s fair to surmise that plenty of people have been persuaded by flight simulators that they can fly.</p>
<p>The same is true of the experience of managing a population. The experience, that is, of governing. Do our highly popular government simulators match reality? If not, how do they differ? And when they differ, what are they claiming about how the world should work?</p>
<p><strong>GOVERNING WITHOUT THE GOVERNED</strong><br />
We know plenty of people have been drawn into urban planning by playing “SimCity.” Indeed, it’s almost a cliche of recent articles about “SimCity” to read one or more urban planners declaring, happily or sheepishly, that they came to the profession after managing “SimCity” simulations.</p>
<p>To urban planners, “SimCity” is a bit of a guilty pleasure. As land use expert Ruben Duarte puts it:</p>
<p>“In SimCity, as the Mayor (aka: Planning God), you have absolute dictatorial control over your city where your decisions are the correct ones. It’s a world where buildings rise and fall at your arbitrary whim. Neighbors don’t want a new commercial center downtown? Screw those NIMBYs and just demolish their buildings and put a park in their place to increase your commercial center’s land value. What planner wouldn’t want to take a bulldozer to their most ardent development hecklers? You need a city council approval to build a new airport? [Screw] that noise. I’m just going to plop one right here next to my high-speed rail station. Done.”</p>
<p>The code itself, and the gameplay, both go considerably further than just making urban planning look like a whole lot of fun. Governmentality games like “SimCity” and “Civilization” also reflect norms about what government ought to be doing. They tell us how cities ought to look and how scientific and cultural advances ought to unfold. They tell us what problems the government is and is not equipped to tackle, and how nations ought to view one another and behave toward one another. They tell us how citizens should behave.</p>
<p>Playing a governmentality game requires acting out these norms. Inevitably it means being rewarded for making sure the government really is the leading force in society. It often means making sure the citizens are kept in line, but more often, they stay there of their own accord. The legislator’s main job is to figure out what we the algorithm wants, and optimize.</p>
<p>Playing the game also means being punished for doing the things the designers implicitly take to be incorrect in the real world: You say, as a player of the “Civilization” series, that you don’t want to spend state resources on scientific research? Bad idea! Think maybe “SimCity’s” zoning laws (and ours) are a big mistake? The game doesn’t even let you opt out of them. Want to legalize drugs — to save money, shrink the prisons, cut the violent crime rate, and make your Sims a little happier? Forget it. (You can, however, run an anti-drug campaign, which the Sims dutifully obey, quite unlike in our own world.) Legalized gambling raises the crime rate in</p>
<p>“SimCity,” but in the real world, the relationship is ambiguous at best. And so on.</p>
<p><strong>A FANTASY OF GOVERNMENT CONTROL</strong><br />
“SimCity” is a fantasy of control. Of government control. The procedural rhetoric of the game delivers the player a kind of control that our real controllers only salivate over.</p>
<p>Here, the rulers face few limits from the liberal democratic process or the rule of law, such as we find in any tolerable real- world government. The legislature may or may not have any power to overrule your decisions. The courts can’t do much if anything to limit you. Nor can property rights, neighborhood associations, ballot initiatives, or any of the other usual checks on central power.</p>
<p>The goal is to manage the population, understood as an aggregate, modeled as an algorithm, and surveilled continuously. Anything that might get in the way of that goal would take away the fun, the fun of central control.</p>
<p>Note that in some games, the threat of taking away your fun is paradoxically a part of a player actually having fun. Governmentality games rarely carry out this threat simply because you govern badly. This is an eventuality that comes about very often in the real world, and that should probably come about more often still.</p>
<p>Several other aspects of the governmentality genre likewise enhance the feeling of control and tone down its possibly creepy implications: Knowledge problems are few. The collection of data is easy, cost-free, error-free, privacy-free, and near-total. The Sims, note, here, that they’re not people, they’re only Sims, are pliant and uncomplaining. There is of course an entire spinoff franchise devoted to running the Sims’ lives individually, from day to day. It’s even more popular than</p>
<p>“SimCity,” and the Sims appear completely fine about it. The pseudo-people in these games are maybe the very best realization to be found anywhere of what social theorist Michel Foucault called “docile bodies.” These are individuals temperamentally fit to be governed, and who comply, with their bodies and their lives, to the decrees of power. They are read by the state, according to the codes of the state, and they are passive in the face of the state. In the hopes of central planners everywhere, these docile bodies are to be monitored, explored, and transformed to suit the needs of the government. That is, the needs of the player.</p>
<p><strong>WHEN THE PLANNERS GET PLANNED</strong><br />
It might be fair to ask: Is this really progress? The more and more data that can be gathered about us, and that is indeed being gathered by our governments, the more the fantasy of</p>
<p>“SimCity” may start looking like the real thing. The numbers are out there, waiting to be crunched, and they will be.</p>
<p>And yet the people are not an optimization problem. Their desires aren’t so easily converted into algorithms. Neat, tidy, all-encompassing government rarely ends well, and for exactly that reason. A world of sterile, sanitary perfection offers little chance for authenticity, serendipity, or fun. Gathering the data may tempt us to think otherwise, but there is very good reason to believe that it alone will not be enough. To make valid inferences, we would need not only this data, but a theory of human motivations that goes well beyond anything we have conceived so far.</p>
<p>Some urban planners — quite rightly — also insist that life isn’t so simple, and that anyone taking their cues on governing from “SimCity” should probably be kept away from the profession.</p>
<p>“I don’t think I ever played SimCity without the cheat code implemented,” wrote John Reinhardt, referring to the cheat code that gave his city a million-dollar budget boost.</p>
<p>“Stadiums galore!” he continued. It’s a desire he appears to have in common with city governments nationwide. If only they had his means of paying for it.</p>
<p>Even with the best of intentions, too much central planning can ruin all the fun of a well-lived life. Ironically, “SimCity’s” latest release was plagued with user complaints — precisely because it took away so much of the players’ own creative freedom. Gameplay initially required connecting to the Internet, and the game’s centralized servers turned out to be unreliable. The connection requirement also meant breaking one of the truly great features of the classic game, namely its extensive support for user-generated content. “Holy crap what a mess that was,” said one reviewer.</p>
<p>It left fans in an odd reversal of roles: Now they were the ones subject to the inefficiencies and officiousness of central planning. And predictably, they hated it. </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/simcity-progressivesWed, 03 Sep 2014 15:45 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiJune's Cato Unbound: The Snowden Files, One Year Laterhttp://www.cato.org/blog/junes-cato-unbound-snowden-files-one-year-later
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/june-2014/snowden-files-one-year-later" target="_self">This month at<em> Cato Unbound</em>, we’re discussing Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations</a>.</p>
<p>We mostly know the story, but it bears repeating: One year ago this week, Glenn Greenwald wrote <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order" target="_blank">a news story that would change the world forever</a>. In it, we learned that the National Security Agency had been secretly collecting enormous amounts of telephone metadata on what were presumably ordinary American citizens. The agency had done so without a warrant and without suspicion of any indiviudal person. The revelation changed forever how Americans think about national security, privacy, and civil liberties in the digital age.</p>
<p>More revelations soon followed. Among many others, these included <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret-program-online-data" target="_blank">NSA surveillance of web activity</a>, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-tracking-cellphone-locations-worldwide-snowden-documents-show/2013/12/04/5492873a-5cf2-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html" target="_blank">mobile phone location data</a>, and the content of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/27/nsa-data-mining-authorised-obama" target="_blank">email</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/nsa-collects-millions-text-messages-daily-untargeted-global-sweep" target="_blank">text messages</a>. The NSA also conducted many highly embarrassing acts of surveillance against allied or benign world leaders, including German <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/germany-inquiry-nsa-tapping-angela-merkel-phone" target="_blank">Chancellor Angela Merkel</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10415228/US-spied-on-future-Pope-Francis-during-Vatican-conclave.html" target="_blank">the conclave that recently elected Pope Francis</a>. <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/12/20/report-nsa-paid-tech-firm-to-use-weak-encryption/" target="_blank">It had subverted commonly used encryption systems</a>. It had co-opted numerous tech companies in its plans. Its leaders had <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/29/glenn-greenwald-new-book-no-place-to-hide-tells-how-nsa-spies-on-us/" target="_blank">repeatedly lied to, or at the very least misled, the U.S. Congress</a>. </p>
<p>How far should surveillance go? What has been the value of the information gained? What have we given up in the process? What are the risks, should malign actors ever get their hands on the controls of the system?</p>
<p>We are able to ask these questions today because of one individual: Edward Snowden, a systems administrator for the NSA who chose to make public the information to which he had access. We have no choice now but to debate it. That’s simply what democracies do whenever such momentous information becomes public.</p>
<p>Joining us at <em>Cato Unbound</em> this month are four individuals with extensive knowledge in the fields of national security and civil liberties: Cato Senior Fellow <strong>Julian Sanchez</strong>, Brookings Institution Senior Fellow <strong>Benjamin Wittes</strong>, Georgetown University Professor <strong>Carrie F. Cordero,</strong> and independent journalist <strong>Marcy Wheeler</strong>. Each brings a somewhat different perspective on the matters at hand, and we welcome them all to <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/june-2014/snowden-files-one-year-later" target="_blank">what is sure to be a vigorous debate</a>.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/junes-cato-unbound-snowden-files-one-year-laterFri, 06 Jun 2014 10:03 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiSigns of Progress in Marijuana Reformhttp://www.cato.org/blog/marijuana-reform-progress
<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html?iref=">Exactly as Cato adjunct Jeffry Miron suggested</a>, American marijuana reform has been bringing <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tracing-the-us-heroin-surge-back-south-of-the-border-as-mexican-cannabis-output-falls/" target="_blank">big changes to Mexico</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Farmers in the storied “Golden Triangle” region of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, which has produced the country’s most notorious gangsters and biggest marijuana harvests, say they are no longer planting the crop. Its wholesale price has collapsed in the past five years, from $100 per kilogram to less than $25.</p>
<p>“It’s not worth it anymore,” said Rodrigo Silla, 50, a lifelong cannabis farmer who said he couldn’t remember the last time his family and others in their tiny hamlet gave up growing <em>mota</em>. “I wish the Americans would stop with this legalization.”</p></blockquote>
<p>That’s actually great news: along with the big profits, marijuana brought northern Mexico <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/02/world/americas/mexico-drug-war-fast-facts/" target="_blank">tens of thousands of murders</a>. We can all do without those. </p>
<p>One possible negative consequence has been an observed increase in Mexican opium production, although it may be too soon to say <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobsullum/2014/02/03/is-heroin-use-soaring/" target="_blank">whether opiate use is really on the rise</a>, and if so, whether it’s been driven by a greater availability of heroin, or by <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-government-is-right-to-crack-down-on-prescription-opioid-abuse/2014/03/12/34c4d55e-a886-11e3-8d62-419db477a0e6_story.html" target="_blank">the government cracking down harder on prescription opiate addicts</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, the answer to <em>that</em> problem resembles the answer to our marijuana problem, and both resemble the way we finally stopped bootleggers under alcohol Prohibition: legalize, establish relatively sensible regulations, and let addicts get treatment in an environment free of fear and threat. One doesn’t have to be a Harvard economist to see why that approach makes sense.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/marijuana-reform-progressThu, 15 May 2014 11:41 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiColorado Isn't Having a Cultural Revolutionhttp://www.cato.org/blog/colorado-isnt-having-cultural-revolution
<p>In news that will surprise exactly no one, <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/entertainment/ci_25656494/colorado-symphony-cannabis-industry-find-harmony-concert-series" target="_blank">music and cannabis can be pretty nice together</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The cultural revolution that is making marijuana part of everyday Colorado life conquers another established front Tuesday as the Colorado Symphony Orchestra announces a series of performances sponsored by the cannabis industry.</p>
<p>The concerts, organized by pro-pot promoter Edible Events, will start May 23 with three bring-your-own marijuana events at the Space Gallery in Denver’s Santa Fe arts district and culminate with a large, outdoor performance at Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Sept. 13. The events are being billed as fundraisers for the CSO, which will curate a themed program of classical music for each show.</p></blockquote>
<p>But that’s hardly a cultural revolution: The earliest written mention of marijuana was by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, who described its users dancing and singing. The rest, as they say, is history.</p>
<p>What’s revolutionary here is the law, which has finally begun treating Coloradans like responsible adults rather than criminals. At least about cannabis: <a href="http://www.cato.org/publications/white-paper/drug-decriminalization-portugal-lessons-creating-fair-successful-drug-policies" target="_blank">Our laws ought to do the same for all illegal drugs</a>. Doing so will encourage <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/08/earth-fire-erowid/towards-culture-responsible-psychoactive-drug-use">responsible drug use, better scientific research, and better treatment for addicts</a>.</p>
<p>Yes, legal cannabis means we will have to make a few adjustments. But many of them aren’t so bad: “Are drivers sober?” is not a new question, after all. Only now, it’s a question to be answered a little more honestly, and with better treatment from the law. On the whole, that’s clearly for the best.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/colorado-isnt-having-cultural-revolutionWed, 30 Apr 2014 11:11 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month's Cato Unbound: The State, the Clan, and Individual Libertyhttp://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-state-clan-individual-liberty
<p>The great classical liberal sociologist Henry Sumner Maine theorized that societies progressed from status to contract: In a status-based society, one is born into a place in a hierarchy. That place may change, but typically it doesn’t change very much, and your place governs your rights and obligations. Societies of status are stable, rigid, and often deeply illiberal. They tend to be dominated by kinship groups, or clans, and those can be quite collectivist and hostile to individual liberty.</p>
<p>Contract-based societies are very different: In a contract-based society, individuals tend to be legally equal at birth. Family ties are affective and not quite so legally binding. Obligations tend to be voluntarily undertaken rather than assumed at birth. Societies of contract are flexible, may change rapidly, and will often act to protect individual liberty.</p>
<p>At <em>Cato Unbound</em>, this month’s lead essayist, legal historian <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/mark-s-weiner">Mark S. Weiner</a>, argues that the state performs a sometimes unappreciated role in keeping away the status-based society: <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/03/10/mark-s-weiner/paradox-modern-individualism" target="_blank">without a state that’s strong enough to break the power of the clans, then the clans will return, and individual liberty will suffer</a>.</p>
<p>But how real is the danger? Do we really have the strong state to thank for our liberty? Economist <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/arnold-kling">Arnold Kling</a> argues that <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/03/12/arnold-kling/human-nature-vs-libertarian-ideals" target="_blank">other institutions, including the nuclear family and consensual transfers of property, make clannishness unappealing</a>. <em>The American Conservative</em>’s editor, <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/daniel-mccarthy">Daniel McCarthy</a>, suggests that <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/03/14/daniel-mccarthy/paradox-rule" target="_blank">even liberal government is at times a very collectivist, and thus clannish, activity</a>. Legal historian <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/john-fabian-witt">John Fabian Witt</a> will weigh in on Monday, and we welcome your comments as well.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-state-clan-individual-libertyFri, 14 Mar 2014 14:32 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiKindly Inquisitorshttp://www.cato.org/blog/kindly-inquisitors
<p>This week Jonathan Rauch celebrates the new, expanded edition of his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Kindly-Inquisitors-Attacks-Thought-Expanded/dp/022614593X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1391454633&sr=1-1&keywords=kindly+inquisitors">Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought</a>. </em>He’s also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/03/the-painful-case-of-pastor-scott-lively-homophobe-to-the-world/">guest-blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy</a>, itself newly hosted at the <em>Washington Post. </em>In his first post, Rauch sums up a key point of his book and also why its reissue is so timely:</p>
<blockquote><p>Over the past 20 years, the idea that minorities need protection from hateful or discriminatory speech has gained ground, both in American universities’ speech codes and in national laws abroad. In fact, I argue, minorities are much better off in a system that protects hateful or discriminatory speech than in a system that protects them from it.</p></blockquote>
<p><em>Kindly Inquistors</em> offers a moral defense of free inquiry, with a focus on how minorities fare under different approaches to controversial speech. Rauch concludes that when individuals disagree, the only proper approach is the “checking of each by each through public criticism.” </p>
<p>He terms this approach liberal science, and he recommends it not just in science, but in public policy. One of the most interesting facets of <em>Kindly Inquisitors</em> is the way that Rauch links the free inquiry of science to the free inquiry found in liberal democratic societies; both, he argues, are also akin to the free inquiry found in capitalism.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">In all these areas, free inquiry can nevertheless cause genuine harm. Why not restrict, just a bit, if it will prevent some suffering? In the book, Rauch answers:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">The truth is that liberal science demands discipline as well as license… It does not give a damn about your feelings and happily tramples them in the name of finding truth. It allows and – here we should be honest – sometimes encourages offense. Self-esteem, sensitivity, respect for others’ beliefs, renunciation of prejudice are all good as far as they go. But as primary social goals they are incompatible with the peaceful and productive advancement of human knowledge. To advance knowledge, we must all sometimes suffer. Worse than that, we must inflict suffering on others.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">For many, these words will not be welcome. And for a few truly loathsome people, they will be all too welcome. Undeniably, words a lot like these have been used as a pretext to hurt, which they should not be.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">Yet we classical liberals have always welcomed the progress that comes from free minds, from the free exchange of ideas, and from the freedoms of travel and commerce, even if at times they bring disruption, embarrassment, or loss. In science, in public opinion, and in the marketplace, there will always be failures. And yet for a society to succeed, such failures cannot be avoided.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">Our faith in mankind’s ability to find and act upon the truth is key: We trust that the process of inquiry, with its defeats as well as its victories, will bring a better and better life for us all. </span></p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/kindly-inquisitorsMon, 03 Feb 2014 15:05 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiOur Broken Judicial Nominations Processhttp://www.cato.org/blog/our-broken-judicial-nominations-process
<p>This month at <em>Cato Unbound</em>, we’re discussing <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/january-2014/are-judicial-nominations-broken-how-should-we-fix-them">the federal judicial nominations process</a>: Is it broken? (Spoiler: Yes!) How did it get that way? And what can be done to fix it? </p>
<p>Our lead essayist is John R. Lott, Jr., author of the new book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Courts-Politics-Smartest/dp/1626522499/">Dumbing Down the Courts: How Politics Keeps the Smartest Judges Off the Bench</a>.</em> <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2014/01/13/john-r-lott-jr/how-courts-got-dumbed-down">His lead essay charges that the growth of the federal government’s regulatory reach has raised the stakes in the judicial nominaitons process</a>: Now it’s a much graver matter when the other party’s judges end up on the bench – particularly if the nominees in question are especially smart and persuasive. Lott writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>Think that attending a top university and graduating at the top of the class is the key to your success? Not if you’re headed for a federal judgeship. In fact, today the most accomplished candidates are the most likely to be rejected. And this phenomenon has only gotten worse, with the quality of judges declining over the last four decades…</p>
<p>A smart, persuasive judge might convince other judges to change their votes on a case. Judges who can write powerfully worded decisions also are more likely to be cited more frequently in other judges’ decisions and to influence their decisions.</p>
<p>The president wants to nominate influential judges to successfully push the positions he values. His political opponents, however, naturally fear such judges—and, therefore, vehemently oppose their appointments.</p></blockquote>
<p>Agree? Disagree? We’ll see some of each this month at <em>Cato Unbound</em>, and we invite you to follow the conversation as it develops. Coming up we’ll have essays <span style="line-height: 1.3em;">by Professor </span><a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/michael-teter" target="_blank">Michael Teter</a><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> of the University of Utah, on January 15; </span><a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/clint-bolick" target="_blank">Clint Bolick</a><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> of the Goldwater Institute, on January 17; and </span><a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/john-o-mcginnis" target="_blank">John O. McGinnis</a><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> of Northwestern University, on January 20. A conversation among all four participants will then be held through the end of the month.</span></p>
<p>Lastly, if you like <em>Cato Unbound</em>, be sure to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CatoUnbound">like us on Facebook</a> and follow us on <a href="https://twitter.com/CatoUnbound">Twitter</a>.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/our-broken-judicial-nominations-processTue, 14 Jan 2014 10:10 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month at Cato Unbound : Sex Work and the Lawhttp://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-sex-work-law
<p>This month’s <em>Cato Unbound</em> tackles an issue as old as humanity, and maybe even older: <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/december-2013/perverse-incentives-sex-work-law" target="_blank">Sex work has been a part of nearly all human societies, even despite frequent prohibitions</a>. Well, some say, we should allow it – but we should regulate it very heavily.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/02/maggie-mcneill/treating-sex-work-work" target="_blank">Lead essayist Maggie McNeill takes a much more libertarian view: simply allow it</a>. Sex work is “not a crime, nor a scam, nor a ‘lazy’ way to get by, nor a form of oppression,” she writes. “It is a personal service, akin to massage, or nursing, or counseling, and should be treated as such.” As a former call girl and madam, she draws on personal experience, as well as the remarkable body of knowledge found at her blog, <a href="http://maggiemcneill.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">The Honest Courtesan</a>. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">Obviously we wouldn’t be a journal of debate without some vigorous dissent, and it will come this month from a panel of three other experts in the field: <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/ronald-weitzer" target="_blank">Ronald Weitzer</a> is a sociologist at the George Washington University; <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/dianne-post" target="_blank">Dianne Post</a> is an international legal advocate who works on gender-based violence; and <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/steven-wagner" target="_blank">Steven Wagner</a> is the president of Renewal Forum, a nonprofit opposed to human trafficking. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.3em;">Be sure to stop by and see what they have to say over the coming week; feel free to reply in the comments. And if you like what you read, you should also follow us on </span><a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/CatoUnbound" target="_blank">Facebook</a><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> and </span><a style="line-height: 1.3em;" href="https://twitter.com/CatoUnbound" target="_blank">Twitter</a><span style="line-height: 1.3em;"> for regular updates.</span></p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-sex-work-lawTue, 03 Dec 2013 11:24 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month at Cato Unbound: The Federal Reserve at 100http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-federal-reserve-100
<p>We have now had 100 years of central banking. So what do we have to show for it? Has the Federal Reserve been worth it? If not, what should we do? </p>
<p>That’s the topic of <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/november-2013/federal-reserve-100">this month’s <em>Cato Unbound</em></a>. Our panel will present a variety of viewpoints, starting with Cato Senior Fellow Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., who argues that a central bank is unnecessary in a classical regime of commodity money and free banking. <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/11/04/gerald-p-odriscoll-jr/fed-100">Central banks are only needed, he argues, when governments want to spend beyond their means</a>. He recommends returning to fiscal discipline and then to commodity money, under which a central bank will be unnecessary.</p>
<p>Opinions do differ on these questions, of course, and we will also hear from George Mason University Professor <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/lawrence-h-white" target="_blank">Lawrence H. White</a>, Bentley University Professor <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/scott-sumner" target="_blank">Scott Sumner</a> and former Cleveland Federal Reserve President <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/jerry-l-jordan" target="_blank">Jerry L. Jordan</a>. Readers are invited to submit comments and to <a href="https://twitter.com/catounbound" target="_self">follow us on Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CatoUnbound">Facebook</a> for regular updates and discussion.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-federal-reserve-100Mon, 04 Nov 2013 12:12 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiJason Kuznicki, Liberty and the European Experiencehttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/jason-kuznicki-liberty-european-experience
<p>From <a href="http://www.cato.org/cato-university/2013/schedule">Cato University 2013</a></p>
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/jason-kuznicki-liberty-european-experienceTue, 30 Jul 2013 15:15 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiAt Cato Unbound: The Private Digital Economyhttp://www.cato.org/blog/cato-unbound-private-digital-economy
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/july-2013/private-digital-economy">What if money were private?</a></p>
<p>One very correct answer is, simply: Money already is private. Sure, there’s the old familiar legal tender of the U.S. government, but the idea of money, and the practices that surround it, are not necessarily tied to the greenback. We all know how money works, and other things can certainly be used in the dollar’s place – if a buyer and a seller agree. From there, if more buyers and sellers agree, the items they use may become a <em>medium of exchange</em> – a class of things held with the intention of passing them along in the market rather than using them directly.</p>
<p>As most of you probably know, that’s exactly what’s happening right now with bitcoin. But is bitcoin <em>sound</em> money? For that matter, what is it that makes a thing sound money? Gold wasn’t sound money just because of its inherent goldiness; it had (and has) distinct, identifiable properties that make it a pretty good money – properties that, say, land, automobiles, or hydrogen conspicuously lack.</p>
<p>How does bitcoin stack up? Will an all-digital private currency one day supplant fiat money? If so, will it be bitcoin or something else? There are alternatives, and some of them are quite successful, albeit less highly publicized in the West. </p>
<p>Cato’s own <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/07/08/jim-harper/its-just-money">Jim Harper discusses these issues in his lead essay</a> for <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/july-2013/private-digital-economy" target="_self">July 2013’s <em>Cato Unbound</em></a>. Coming up we have essays by Internet security consultant Dan Kaminsky, tech policy analyst Jerry Brito of the Mercatus Center, and Ph.D. candidate Chuck Moulton, who is writing his dissertation on transitions from unsound to relatively sound monetary systems. </p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/cato-unbound-private-digital-economyWed, 10 Jul 2013 09:57 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month at Cato Unbound: The Future of Right-Libertarian Fusionismhttp://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-future-right-libertarian-fusionism
<p>This month our online ideas journal <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/"><em>Cato Unbound</em> boasts an all-new design</a>, with new software to make reading and navigating a whole lot more intuitive.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/issues/may-2013/conservative-libertarian-fusionism-state-debate">Our latest issue tackles the topic of fusionism</a> – the old-new idea that libertarians belong on the right side of the political aisle.</p>
<p>Fusionism has a long history. But will it play to millennials? That could be one of the most important questions in American politics.</p>
<p>Young voters are a lot less conservative on social issues like gay marriage and drug policy. In this, they echo previous generational trends on questions like interracial marriage and pornography, neither of which are live political issues anymore. Younger Americans also seem more skeptical of corporate influences in politics. That fact may tilt them to the left, but it could also pave the way for a less corporatist free-market movement, if only we can make the case to them. And some millennials might not even remember a time when America was at peace – a thing we can’t say about any previous generation.</p>
<p>How does the old right-libertarian alliance fare in this new environment? We decided to ask some young activists who’ve given some thought to the question.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/05/06/jacqueline-otto/state-debate">Making the case for fusionism is Jacqueline Otto</a> of the American Enterprise Institute’s <a href="http://www.valuesandcapitalism.com/">Values and Capitalism Project</a>. Economic liberty unites us, she says – and we ought not to let the rest divide us.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/05/07/jeremy-kolassa/unequal-treaty">And contra, we have Jeremy Kolassa</a>, a writer for <a href="http://www.unitedliberty.org/">United Liberty</a>. He argues that libertarians haven’t gotten much from their old alliance with the right, and it’s time to stand on our own. Libertarians should offer good ideas to whoever will listen and form coalitions wherever specific issues allow it.</p>
<p>Over the next few days we’ll also have essays from <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/clark-ruper">Clark Ruper</a> of Students for Liberty and <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/jordan-ballor">Jordan Ballor</a> of the Acton Institute. Also be sure to stop by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CatoUnbound">our Facebook page</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/CatoUnbound">follow us on Twitter</a> as the conversation develops.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-future-right-libertarian-fusionismWed, 08 May 2013 10:38 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month at Cato Unbound: What Keeps Money Out of Politics?http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-what-keeps-money-out-politics
<p>It’s called the Tullock Paradox: if you run the numbers, the expected returns to lobbying commonly appear much larger than they ought to be. Bad behavior pays really well, and yet corporations and interest groups routinely pass on what would seem, from a coldly amoral stance, to be easy money. Rational economic actors ought to bid up the price of government favor—and thus bid down the rate of return—but real-world actors don’t do so.</p>
<p>Why don’t we see even more money in politics? That’s the question we ask in <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/april-2013-what-keeps-money-out-of-politics/">the April, 2013 issue of <em>Cato Unbound</em></a>.</p>
<p>To answer that question, we have invited <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/fred-l-smith/">Fred L. Smith</a>, founder and chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a man who has spent much of his career pondering just this question, and who benefits from an insider’s view of political advocacy. <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/04/01/fred-l-smith/public-choice-and-political-advocacy-a-view-from-the-front-lines/" target="_blank">His lead essay</a> suggests that there is a widespread distaste for political activity among people who would otherwise turn to lobbying, and often that’s with good reason.</p>
<p>To discuss with him the potential pitfalls of public choice modeling, we have invited a panel of distinguished academics: Professors <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/stephen-ansolabehere/" target="_blank">Stephen Ansolabehere</a> of Harvard University, <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/francesco-parisi/" target="_blank">Francesco Parisi</a> of the University of Minnesota School of Law, and <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/raymond-j-la-raja/" target="_blank">Raymond J. La Raja</a> of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.</p>
<p>As always,<em> Cato Unbound</em> readers are encouraged to take up our themes and enter into the conversation on their own websites and blogs, or on other venues. We also welcome your letters. Send them to jkuznicki at cato dot org. Selections may be published at the editors’ option.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/month-cato-unbound-what-keeps-money-out-politicsTue, 02 Apr 2013 11:36 EDTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThe Moral Authority of the Statehttp://www.cato.org/blog/moral-authority-state
<p>If everyone judged the state and its agents by the same moral standards that they used for ordinary people, then nearly all of us would be libertarians. Judged in this way, essentially all governments behave appallingly.</p>
<p>“Yes,” comes the standard reply, “but we <em>don’t</em> judge governments by the same standards. The state is different, you see.”</p>
<p>Of course, it’s only fair to ask why that might be the case<em>. </em><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/archives/march-2013-authority-obedience-and-the-state/" target="_blank">This month at <em>Cato Unbound</em></a>, philosopher Michael Huemer does just that, addressing several of the standard reasons why the state purportedly has license to behave very differently from the rest of us. He finds them all lacking in one way or another.</p>
<p>Huemer’s essay draws on his new book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Problem-Political-Authority-Examination/dp/1137281642/" target="_blank">The Problem of Political Authority</a></em>, in which he addresses nearly all of the most common justifications for treating the state as a moral agent with legitimate powers beyond those of the rest of us. For those who usually shy away from philosophy, Huemer is an intuitionist—he doesn’t build abstract systems of thought, which may or may not be convincing or even comprehensible. He begins instead with common, widely shared intuitions, in the hope that nearly all of us, whether utilitarians, deontologists, virtue ethicists, agnostics, or otherwise, will find his conclusions compelling.</p>
<p>To discuss with him, we’ve recruited a panel of distinguished thinkers of varying persuasions: George Mason economics professor <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/bryan-caplan/" target="_blank">Bryan Caplan</a>, libertarian scholar-activist <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/tom-g-palmer/" target="_blank">Tom G. Palmer</a>, and Binghamton University philosophy professor <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/nicole-hassoun/" target="_blank">Nicole Hassoun</a>.</p>
<p>As always, <em>Cato Unbound</em> readers are encouraged to take up our themes, and enter into the conversation on their own websites and blogs, or on other venues. We also welcome your letters. Send them to jkuznicki at cato dot org. Selections may be published at the editors’ option.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/moral-authority-stateTue, 05 Mar 2013 10:50 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month’s Cato Unbound: Opportunities for Copyright Reformhttp://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-opportunities-copyright-reform
<p>Republican Study Committee staffer <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/derek-khanna/" target="_blank">Derek Khanna made a splash in November when he authored a memo recommending simplification of our copyright system and a significant reduction in its term lengths.</a></p>
<p>His ideas didn’t sit too well with some folks, apparently, because the RSC removed the memo from its website and let him go.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/derek-khanna/" target="_blank">Well. We kinda liked that memo, so we invited him to discuss its contents at </a><a href="http://www.cato.org/%20http%3A//www.cato-unbound.org/" target="_blank"><em>Cato Unbound</em></a>. He has just done so in this month’s <a href="http://www.cato.org/%20http%3A//www.cato-unbound.org/2013/01/07/derek-khanna/the-way-forward-on-copyright-reform/" target="_blank">lead essay</a>.</p>
<p>Cato adjunct scholar <a href="http://www.cato.org/%20http%3A//www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/timothy-b-lee/" target="_blank">Timothy B. Lee</a> has written a thoughtful response detailing the dangers of <a href="http://www.cato.org/%20http%3A//www.cato-unbound.org/2013/01/09/tim-lee/civil-asset-forfeiture-and-intellectual-property/" target="_blank">civil asset forfeiture in copyright cases</a>. And two more replies will be out in the next few days – one by <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/ryan-radia/" target="_blank">Ryan Radia</a> of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and one by <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/mark-schultz/" target="_blank">Mark Schultz</a> of Southern Illinois University School of Law. Each will discuss practical, near-term ways to improve copyright policy, an area of ever-increasing commercial and legal importance.</p>
<p>As always, <em>Cato Unbound</em> readers are encouraged to take up our themes, and enter into the conversation on their own websites and blogs, or on other venues. We also welcome your letters. Send them to jkuznicki at cato dot org. Selections may be published at the editors’ option.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-opportunities-copyright-reformWed, 09 Jan 2013 10:55 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiCato Unbound on Assisted Suicidehttp://www.cato.org/blog/cato-unbound-assisted-suicide
<p>Last month, a Massachusetts ballot initiative that would have legalized physician-assisted suicide in that state narrowly failed. It was only the latest in a decades-long set of legal and electoral battles over what we might call the last choice: when and how we may end our own lives, and with what forms of assistance.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/" target="_blank"><em>Cato Unbound</em></a> this month features <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=6927">a lead essay on physician-assisted dying</a> by <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/howard-ball/" target="_blank">Howard Ball</a>, a Professor Emeritus of political science at the University of Vermont and author of <em>At Liberty to Die: The Battle for Death with Dignity in America</em>.</p>
<p>Joining him are <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/patrick-lee/" target="_blank">Patrick Lee</a>, the John N. and Jamie D. McAleer Chair in Bioethics at Franciscan University of Steubenville, who argues that assisting suicide <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=6954" target="_blank">devalues the intrinsic good of human life</a>; and <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/philip-nitschke/" target="_blank">Philip Nitschke</a>, the Founder and Director of Exit International, a leading group advocating for end-of-life rights, who questions <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/?p=6951">whether the act of deliberately terminating one’s life really needs a doctor – and by extension, the state – at all</a>.</p>
<p>Powerful ethical and legal questions surround this choice. While a libertarian might be tempted to affirm that physician-assisted suicide is an exercise in personal autonomy, the matter is by no means so simple. The legal and constitutional traditions of our country have only occasionally affirmed such a right, and the potential for abuse in various assisted-suicide regimes may be unacceptably high. Add to this the concerns raised by those who argue for the essential dignity, not of a painless death, but of a <em>natural</em> one, and we confront a vast terrain of ethical issues.</p>
<p>As always, <em>Cato Unbound</em> readers are encouraged to take up our themes, and enter into the conversation on their own websites and blogs, or on other venues. We also welcome your letters. Send them to jkuznicki at cato dot org. Selections may be published at the editors’ option.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/cato-unbound-assisted-suicideMon, 17 Dec 2012 18:02 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiMarriage Should Not Be Regulated by the Federal Governmenthttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marriage-should-not-be-regulated-federal-government
<p>Of course gay marriage should be left to the states. Indeed, all marriage should be left to the states. Search the U.S. Constitution from start to finish, and you will find no reference whatsoever to marriage. You will, however, find the 10th Amendment, which reads as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”</p>
<p>Marriage is not commerce, war, or taxation. It is unrelated to money, the post office, the patent system, or any of the other enumerated powers of the federal government. Its regulation is neither necessary nor proper in pursuit of those powers.</p>
<p>At the drafting of the Constitution, the states all had marriage laws of one kind or another. There were wide disparities among them, both then and now, and such disparities have existed at all times in between.</p>
<p>The founders had no desire to settle such matters, and they did not wish a future Congress to do so either. The Constitution they wrote left only two choices: Either allow the states to regulate marriage (with, perhaps, federal consequences to follow) — or else return marriage to the people, to individuals, families, churches, and communities. Either approach would be consistent with the Constitution. The Defense of Marriage Act, however, is not.</p>
<p>Speaking personally for a moment, I am in a same-sex marriage. Some states recognize it, including my home state of Maryland. I am happy that they do, and I wish more of them would. But just as Congress can’t prohibit same sex marriage, I must conclude that Congress can’t establish it, either.</p>
<p>Whether the states must all recognize same sex marriages as a matter of civil rights law, unrelated to the 10th Amendment, is a question the Supreme Court may soon address. But I find it implausible that the Court would do so now. The Prop. 8 case by no means requires it. And it’s still less plausible that the Court would make the sweeping judgment required to say yes. In the meantime, I am content both to support same sex marriage and to advocate for it on the state level, where public opinion is rapidly shifting in its favor, and where the good fight is still to be fought.</p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/marriage-should-not-be-regulated-federal-governmentMon, 17 Dec 2012 09:55 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason KuznickiThis Month's Cato Unbound: The Online Education Revolutionhttp://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-online-education-revolution
<p>As Joseph Schumpeter famously wrote, markets are agents of “creative destruction”: when market forces are free to operate, and when entrepreneurs are free to act on their ideas, the old must often give way to the new.</p>
<p>Innovation and cultural dynamism are the hallmarks of a free economy. This state of constant flux is to our way of thinking a welcome and valued thing. Only an economy that is constantly in transition can hope to approximate the changing needs and wants of a robust and flourishing society.</p>
<p>Our love of dynamism is one reason why libertarians aren’t really conservatives, and why we might even wish that we could claim the label “progressive” for ourselves—if it hadn’t been taken, long ago, by individuals whose beliefs differ sharply from our own.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/" target="_blank">At <em>Cato Unbound</em> this month</a> we are discussing what may prove to be a remarkable example of creative destruction. Within the last few years, Massive Online Open Courses—MOOCs, for short—have become one of the most important trends in higher education. <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2012/11/12/alex-tabarrok/why-online-education-works/" target="_blank">As our lead essayist Alex Tabarrok argues</a>, traditional higher education hasn’t changed substantially for centuries. Yet there is no good reason why this should be, not with all of the new information technology that the market has put at our disposal.</p>
<p>Together with his colleague Tyler Cowen, Tabarrok has founded <a href="http://mruniversity.com/" target="_blank">Marginal Revolution University</a>, which is planned as a growing series of free, online courses that anyone can take. The lectures are brief, watchable on your own schedule, viewable on mobile devices, and replayable. You can ask questions of the professors and receive detailed, personalized feedback. You can study in a group or entirely on your own, and students are invited to create supplemental videos that might be included in future class sessions.</p>
<p>MR University, as it’s called for short, hopes to deliver flexible, inexpensive higher education to the masses, in a way that Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard—for all their tradition—never could. And it’s just one small player in a burgeoning new educational sector. So how should educators and policymakers think about these developments?</p>
<p>To answer that question, we have recruited a panel of distinguished commentators: <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/siva-vaidhyanathan/" target="_blank">Siva Vaidhyanathan</a> is the Robertson Professor in Media Studies and Chair of the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia; <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/alan-ryan/" target="_blank">Alan Ryan</a> is the former Warden of New College, Oxford, and a frequent commentator on developments in liberal education; and <a href="http://www.cato-unbound.org/contributors/kevin-carey/" target="_blank">Kevin Carey</a> is director of the education policy program at the New America Foundation.</p>
<p>As always,<em> Cato Unbound </em>readers are encouraged to take up our themes, and enter into the conversation on their own websites and blogs, or on other venues. We also welcome your letters. Send them to jkuznicki at cato dot org. Selections may be published at the editors’ option.</p>
http://www.cato.org/blog/months-cato-unbound-online-education-revolutionTue, 13 Nov 2012 10:21 ESTJason Kuznicki (Author at Cato Institute)Jason Kuznicki